FAA panel finds Boeing 737 MAX software upgrade ‘operationally suitable’

(Reuters) – A Federal Aviation Administration review board said
on Tuesday that a software update to the grounded Boeing 737 MAX
aircraft was found to be “operationally suitable.”

Boeing said earlier this month it planned to submit a software
upgrade and additional training for the anti-stall system known as
Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) on the
planes to the FAA in the coming weeks for approval.

The draft report from the FAA Flight Standardization Board (FSB)
also said additional training was needed for MCAS, but not required
to be done in a simulator. The board said ground training “must
address system description, functionality, associated failure
conditions, and flight crew alerting.”

Boeing shares were up 2 percent in afternoon trading.

Although shares bounced higher on the FAA news, investors were
advised by the proxy firm Institutional Shareholder Services to
press the company to vote for a shareholder proposal to split the
role of chairman and chief executive.

Boeing did not immediately comment. The FAA still must approve
the software package and training once Boeing formally submits them
to the agency, an FAA spokesman said.

More than 300 Boeing 737 MAX jets have been grounded worldwide
after nearly 350 people died in two crashes, one in Indonesia in
October and another in Ethiopia last month.

The FAA is also convening a joint review with aviation
regulators from China, Europe, Canada, Brazil, Indonesia, Ethiopia
and other countries. American and Southwest have canceled flights
through early August because of the 737 MAX grounding.

The FSB board consists of experts, pilots and engineers. The FSB
that reviewed the 737 MAX before it was certified in 2017 had
unanimously agreed that additional “flight training was not needed”
because there were no significant differences in handling compared
to the earlier 737, acting FAA administrator Dan Elwell said at a
Senate hearing last month.

Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Nick Zieminski